User:Emmacosette/sandbox

= Deaf Theatre = The d/Deaf community is one whose shared culture revolves around being hard of hearing, deaf, or a child of a deaf adult (CODA). Theatre is a diverse art form whose origins date back thousands of years. Within the realm of theatre, the 3 primary pieces are music, acting, and movement. Movement pieces and dance numbers can tell a story on their own but are often assisted through song and soundscapes. While music’s vibrations can be enjoyed by the deaf community, lyrics are oftentimes lost. Acting is almost always oral, with the help of facial expressions. And in musical theatre, stories are told through singing, another medium often inaccessible to the deaf. Because of the oral-based methods of producing theatre, many Deaf audiences have found theatre-going wasteful as the story is not carried over in an accessible manner.

Throughout the 20th century up to modern times, Deaf artists and their allies have begun creating Deaf theatres. These are companies with primarily deaf and hard of hearing production teams who create theatre in their respective signed languages. Some companies choose to have both hearing performers and deaf performers for a dual-language experience. Other theatre companies are still primarily hearing, but have begun to offer more accessible and interpreted performances.

The US
The first Deaf theatre in the US was the National Theatre for the Deaf, which is still up and running to this day. The group was founded after a 1959 Broadway production of The Miracle Worker, which is about Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan. The lighting designer and lead actress in this performance chose to pursue how ASL could be used in art.

The company was officially founded in 1967, along with a drama school. The following year they founded Little Theatre of the Deaf, for d/Deaf children. Currently, there is no more federal funding for the theatre company, so they focus most of their efforts on the children’s group.

In 1979, The New York Deaf Theatre was founded by Deaf artists who wanted performances in ASL within New York City.

Deaf West has become perhaps the most notable after its founding in 1991. It is best known for Spring Awakening and Big River, both of which went to Broadway. All productions will feature hearing actors and deaf actors, oftentimes with 2 people cast in a single role to weave the two languages together.

Russia
Russia has less notable or big-name theatres than the US but actually had an earlier founding. In 1919, various deaf actors came together to form a club of performance. Five years later, the club received a space to rehearse and perform that could seat 300 people. Around this time, the club began doing works of Chekov and other famous playwrights. There is not much information about what happened to this club after WWII, but it toured throughout the 1930s under “The Moscow Theatre of the Deaf.”.

In 1957, the Russian government helped to fund various post-war investments, one of which was deaf cultural engagement. With this, a theatre studio was founded for the deaf. It became known as the Theatre of Sign and Gesture, a name it still holds to this day. By the mid-60s, actors started to receive professional training within the studio.

In 2003, a newer theatre known as Nedoslov Theatre was formed. This theatre is comprised of only deaf and hard-of-hearing members and has toured internationally to various festivals.